And Luke Met Her
by mercy-angel-09
Summary: Oneshot. Title should be selfexplanitory.


**And Luke Met Her**

**Disclaimer** - Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel Palladino have created a wonderful town and a colorful cast of characters. I am merely borrowing them for my own happy fangirl fantasies.

**Author's Notes** - This is my first completed Gilmore Girls fic. I have another one that I'm working on right now, to be published at a later date, but for now I'm content to post this simple one-shot. The title should be pretty self-explanitory.

* * *

To say that the diner was busy would be like saying that Pope was Catholic. That the Titanic sank. That Babette and Miss Patty could spread gossip quicker than rats could spread the bubonic plague. The usual lunch rush had apparently doubled that day; it was all that Luke could do to keep up with things. He'd stuck his cook Tom in the kitchen with explicit orders not to leave under any circumstances. Harry, Josh, and Mike were all scurrying around the floor with plates of food and order slips, while he tried to keep up with drink orders.

Babette and Miss Patty had flagged him down for their drinks and pulling out his ordering pad he sidled up to their table. "What can I get you ladies?" he asked, pencil poised to jot down their orders.

"You?" Miss Patty asked, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously.

"How about something from the menu?" Luke suggested.

"Get me a Coke," Babette said.

"Water for me, darling," Miss Patty replied, smiling coyly at him.

Hearing the bell on the door ring, Luke sighed. All of the tables were full, there wasn't an empty stool at the counter, and he was quickly reaching the point where a stupid question would send him over the edge.

"Oh praise the Lord, I smell coffee!" someone said loudly, and Luke was surprised to see Babette chuckle instead of craning to see who would make such an usual and unusually loud statement.

Quick footsteps approached and when Luke turned he came face to face with a pretty woman with the most stunning pair of blue eyes. She was tall and slender and dressed in business clothes, but her eyes spoke of life and mischief. "I heard this rumor that you have the best coffee in town, and let me tell ya I'm just jonesing for a Java fix."

Raising an eyebrow, Luke answered, "We're busy here, so if you could take a seat we'll get to you when we get to you." He turned and headed to the next table that needed their drinks.

"You don't seem to understand the urgency of the situation here," the woman continued. "I'm an addict. I'll become violent and angry if you keep my caffeine away from me. Believe me, I could totally go Norman Bates on you."

Gritting his teeth, Luke continued to take orders while the woman babbled on about how she needed her coffee. After a few more minutes of her incessant rambling, Luke rounded on her. "If would just take a seat at the counter," he said tightly, indicating to a newly vacant spot at said counter, "I'll get your coffee, though I seriously doubt that I should give you any in your current state. Stop annoying me."

"Hey, what's your birthday?" she asked, completely ignoring his last statement.

"I have no reason to tell you my birthday. You are a total stranger. That's personal information. I don't have to tell you."

"Oh come on! Just tell me your birthday."

"No."

"Come on, I swear I won't tell anyone else!"

"No."

"I'm not going to use it to forge credit card applications."

"Definitely no."

"I said I wasn't going to use it to forge credit card applications."

"I said no."

"Come on," she whined. She sounded like a petulant child. "Just tell me already."

Working behind the counter, Luke looked around and saw that most of the patrons had their food or were getting ready to leave. Babette and Miss Patty were watching him and the mystery woman with the bright blue eyes with mild interest. With a sigh, Luke asked, "Why do you want to know my birthday?"

"Because I do."

"That's not a reason."

"Tell me."

"Absolutely not."

"Please?"

"You're being annoying."

"You know you want to tell me.

"Will it shut you up if I do?"

The woman merely smiled beguilingly at him. Rolling his eyes in disgust with himself, he told her his birthday. She smiled at him some more as she reached over and grabbed a leftover copy of the _Stars Hollow Gazette_. She flipped through the pages until she found the horoscope section and quickly ripped the Scorpio blurb from the page. From seemingly nowhere she pulled a pen from the folds of her coat scribbled something down and handed it to him.

"What this?" he asked as she pressed the slip firmly into his hand.

"Just read it," she said mischievously.

Looking at the paper in his palm, he read it aloud. " 'You will meet an annoying woman today. Give her coffee and she'll go away.'" He looked at her and saw that she was giving him a genuine Cheshire Cat smile. "Is this true?"

"Hand over the coffee and I'll leave in peace."

Turning around, Luke poured coffee in a to-go cup and then turned around to hand it to the woman. Taking it with a look of sheer joy, she stopped herself from downing it in one gulp and gave him a mysterious look.

"Hang on to that horoscope."

"Why?"

"Just hang on to it, okay? Put it in your wallet and carry it around with you. It'll bring you good luck one day."

Sighing – he'd been doing a lot of that since she'd walked in the door – he pulled out his wallet and stuck it in. "Happy?"

"Extremely. Thank you, you have no idea what this means to me," she said as she held the cup of coffee up to the side of her face and snuggled it. She then reached into her purse and fished out a five-dollar bill. Tossing at him, she grinned. "Keep the change." With that she marched herself out of the door and hopefully out of his life.

Taking the pot of coffee, he headed over to Babette and Miss Patty's table to pour them their usual after lunch cup of joe. "Was everything okay?" he asked as he filled their cups.

"Of course, Sugar," Babette answered. "It's good to see Lorelai getting out."

"Lorelai?" Luke asked, confused.

"That woman who was following you around, begging for coffee," Miss Patty answered. "Her name is Lorelai Gilmore. She's been living in Stars Hollow for thirteen years now."

"I've never seen her before," Luke said. It dawned on him that he could get all of the information he needed about the mysterious coffee woman if he asked all of the right questions to Babette and Miss Patty. The trick was to make it sound like it was their idea to spill all of the details.

"Well of course _you_ haven't," Babette said with a laugh. "You hardly ever leave your diner. About thirteen years ago she showed up at the Independence Inn with a baby in her arms, asking Mia for a job. Mia took pity on her and gave her a job as a maid and let her live in the potting shed with her baby."

"She has a kid?"

"A daughter also named Lorelai. Of course she goes by Rory," Miss Patty said.

"She doesn't look old enough to have a kid."

"Well, she got knocked up at sixteen, that's why," Babette answered matter-of-factly. "Rory's a sweet kid, though. Really smart. You've probably seen her sitting in the square reading."

"Probably. So why did she end up at the Independence Inn?"

"Lorelai's parents are old money," Miss Patty said. "Apparently the family came over on the Mayflower. Anyway, they wanted to control everything about Lorelai's life."

"What about the father?"

"Christopher," Babette answered. "He's a good lookin' kid. Apparently he did ask Lorelai to marry him shortly after Rory was born, but Lorelai refused. Not long after that she ran away from home. From what I've heard and seen, he's not around much."

"She's now the day manager at the Independence Inn. Mia trusts Lorelai completely," Miss Patty continued. "She's an amazing woman. She's accomplished quite a bit for being a single, teenaged mother."

"She just bought the house next to mine and Morey's," Babette said. "They moved in about two years ago."

"Wow," he said, before moving on to the next table. As he continued on to the other tables to refill and refresh coffee, Luke's mind wandered back to the woman who had come storming into his life earlier that afternoon. A single-mother? He'd become completely enamored of a single mother? He had a strong dislike of kids, but somehow he wanted to meet Rory. He wanted to see Lorelai come in with the daughter that she had raised on her own. He wondered what kind of child she was? Probably outgoing and obnoxious like her mother. But Babette had called her sweet, and in Babette-speak, sweet translated as shy.

Suddenly, Luke hoped that the horoscope wasn't true. He hoped that the annoying woman would return.

* * *

Rather than try to write a bunch of fast-paced Gilmoreisms, I opted to summarize, partly due to a small bout of writer's block, but also because this is mostly from Luke's point of view and not everything that Lorelai said was going to register. He just remembered her talking a mile-a-minute and demanding coffee. I watched _Written in the Stars_ and was suddenly inspired. What **had** their first meeting been like, besides what Luke had so basically described in the show? How did he figure out who she was? So I realize that there are probably dozens of stories like this on the site, but I haven't read any - this is just my take on the event.

Please, leave reviews!


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